A baby with a heart defect at the center of an extraordinary surrogacy battle between a pro-life surrogate and biological parents, who sought an abortion, has undergone his first life-saving surgery.
The child, whom his parents named Rumi, underwent <a href="https://x.com/LilaGraceRose/status/2089514128465649710?s=20">complex heart surgery</a> Monday to treat hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a serious congenital heart defect that typically requires three surgeries.
Lee Budner, an attorney for the parents Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar, said a medical team determined that the baby was eligible for the Norwood procedure, the first of three surgeries typically performed on babies born with HLHS. Babies with the condition typically undergo a second operation at 4 to 6 months of age, <a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/12214-hypoplastic-left-heart-syndrome-hlhs">according</a> to the Cleveland Clinic. 
“Rumi is now recuperating under the loving care of his parents and his heroic team of doctors, nurses, and medical staff,&#8221; the family’s lawyer told CBS. &#8220;This is the last update on Rumi&#8217;s health that his family intends to share. His condition remains critical and complex, and his family seeks privacy in caring for their son on his long road to recovery.” 
The surgery comes after the biological parents who sought to abort the baby following its HLHS diagnosis, the latest twist in a stunning surrogacy battle that has drawn attention from pro-life advocates<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-steps-into-surrogates-fight-for-newborns-life-saving-care?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Admin+Steps+Into+Surrogate%E2%80%99s+Fight+For+Newborn%E2%80%99s+Life-Saving+Care"> to the Trump administration.</a>
McKenna West, a single mother of two, delivered the baby last Wednesday in the Dallas area after Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton secured a court order requiring him to receive life-saving medical care. She named him Gabriel.
At 20 weeks, the baby was diagnosed with HLHS. West has said that after learning of the diagnosis, his biological parents demanded that West travel to California to abort the child,<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/red-state-comes-to-rescue-of-surrogate-mom-facing-pressure-to-kill-baby?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Red+State+Comes+To+Rescue+Of+Surrogate+Mom+Facing+Pressure+To+Kill+Baby"> The Daily Wire</a> previously reported.
“So we were all really upset. It was completely unexpected. Everything had been going great,” West, who became pregnant through IVF, told<a href="https://www.liveaction.org/news/surrogate-fights-baby-heart-condition-refusing-abortion"> Live Action News</a>. “I was full of fear and stress of what they were going to choose. I was feeling pretty confident that they were going to choose termination, and how could I possibly live with myself going through that?”
West refused the abortion demand and fled to Texas, where abortion is mostly illegal, and the state law recognizes the woman who carries and gives birth to a child as the “gestational mother.” 
Most surrogacy contracts include provisions giving the intended parents a say in whether to terminate a pregnancy.<a href="http://surrogate.com/"> Surrogate.com</a> says surrogates cannot be forced to undergo an abortion, but refusing to comply with a contractual agreement could carry “financial and legal consequences.”
West says having the baby could cost her $200,000 — a price she was willing to pay.
“This is my body, and I absolutely don’t want to go through this. Nothing was scarier than questioning my own soul and knowing what would happen to this baby boy,” she told Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action. “His life doesn’t have a price tag on it. There’s nothing that they could try to come after me for that would be worth his life.”
In court filings, Gabriel’s biological parents accused West of initially agreeing to terminate the pregnancy before reversing course,<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/couple-surrogate-claims-wanted-baby-aborted-break-silence-as-red-state-steps-in?author=Amanda+Harding&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=11&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Couple+Surrogate+Claims+Wanted+Baby+Aborted+Break+Silence+As+Red+State+Steps+In"> The Daily Wire</a> reported. 
“It is undisputed that West initially agreed and that she herself made the initial appointment. She then unilaterally changed her mind, cut off all contact with A.B. and C.D., and withdrew medical releases allowing A.B. and C.D. to have contact with all medical providers,” the filing said.
A Dallas judge granted the biological couple’s request for a temporary restraining order against West and blocked her from making any medical decisions for the child she was carrying.
Lincoln Wilson, an attorney for West, told<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/12/texas-surrogacy-california-alaska-parental-rights/"> The Texas Tribune</a> that his client “is lawfully the parent because she gave birth to this child that she carries in Texas, then she should control custody as well.”
A court hearing is scheduled for August 25.

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Parents Who Wanted Surrogate Baby Aborted Agree To Life-Saving Heart Surgery

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baby

McKenna West

News

Pregnancy

Pro-Life Movement

Surrogacy

texas

The first batch of text messages released from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s government-issued phone is raising more questions about what Fauci privately thought about COVID-19 vaccines, and how that differed from what he expressed to the public during the pandemic.
The messages, released this week by Republican Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rand Paul (R-KY), show Fauci privately discussing concerns about the potential risks of COVID vaccination for pregnant women, including the theoretical possibility of miscarriage.
In January 2021, Fauci communicated with Vivek Murthy, who would soon become surgeon general, and then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky about the issue. In one message, Fauci said that a second dose of an mRNA COVID vaccine could “theoretically” be “associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.”
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<div id="attachment_1154917" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1154917" class="wp-image-1154917 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-10-at-8.55.41-PM-1024x348.png" alt="" width="1024" height="348" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-10-at-8.55.41-PM-1024x348.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-10-at-8.55.41-PM-300x102.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-10-at-8.55.41-PM-768x261.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-10-at-8.55.41-PM.png 1260w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Credit: Sen. Ron Johnson</div>
In another exchange, Murthy expressed his own concerns about the vaccines, telling Fauci, “I’ve been hearing the concern about the mRNA causing mutations in the developing fetus as well.” The following day, Murthy flagged an announcement from the World Health Organization advising pregnant women to avoid the Moderna COVID vaccine at the time.
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<div id="attachment_1154939" style="width: 1410px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1154939" class="wp-image-1154939 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-11-at-10.06.12-AM.png" alt="" width="1400" height="1434" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-11-at-10.06.12-AM.png 1400w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-11-at-10.06.12-AM-293x300.png 293w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-11-at-10.06.12-AM-562x576.png 562w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-11-at-10.06.12-AM-768x787.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px" />Credit: Sen. Ron Johnson</div>
The messages were released just days after the Department of Health and Human Services turned over Fauci’s government-issued phone to the Senate. The phone reportedly contains roughly 34,000 text messages and more than 500 voicemails. Johnson and Paul have indicated that additional material could be released after the senators complete their review. So far, fewer than a dozen of the messages have been made public.
The texts are particularly notable because of how they compare with Fauci’s public messaging about COVID vaccination and pregnancy. Just days after his private discussion about the potential miscarriage risk, Fauci publicly offered a much more reassuring assessment of the vaccines for pregnant women. In one interview about a week later, Fauci stressed multiple times that there are &#8220;no red flags&#8221; showing adverse effects for pregnant women. He later said that it&#8217;s &#8220;pretty clear&#8221; pregnant women should get vaccinated.
Fauci did not publicly discuss the possibility of miscarriage that he had raised in private, nor did he mention Murthy’s concerns about potential effects on a developing baby.
The text revelations come on the heels of Fauci&#8217;s pandemic-era diary entries, which were recently made public by Paul. In one diary entry, Fauci described suffering a pulmonary infarction months after receiving a COVID vaccine. Critics say someone publicly urging Americans to receive the vaccines, and shaping mandates, should have been transparent about his health episode.
National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya said the discrepancy between Fauci&#8217;s private and public comments helps explain the erosion of trust in public health officials. “It&#8217;s shocking to me that he was sharing private thoughts and that, when he was out in public — and he was out in the public A LOT — he didn&#8217;t share those private thoughts with the American public,” Bhattacharya told Fox News on Monday.
Folks online flooded social media with backlash, too. Peter Hasson, a former news editor, said he and his wife had to scrape by during the pandemic because his then-pregnant wife refused to be vaccinated, apparently sharing the same private concerns as Fauci and other medical professionals before we had more data.
&#8220;My wife was pregnant and in her clinical year of PA school at this time,&#8221; Hasson <a href="https://x.com/peterjhasson/status/2086937594953077140">said</a>. &#8220;But virtually none of the hospitals or doctors offices in the &#8230; area would accept PA students for clinical rotations if they weren’t vaccinated — even if they were pregnant, even if they had the antibodies — because they were following Fauci’s advice.&#8221;
&#8220;My saint of a wife put our baby daughter first and still didn’t get the shot because she didn’t want to risk anything that might mess with the baby, but we had to spend months and months living out of Airbnbs in various rural small towns across Texas — the only places in the state where hospitals couldn’t afford to turn away help from PA students, vaccinated or not — while eating the rent on our empty apartment at the same time. It was worth it but it literally cost us tens of thousands of dollars while we were a one-income household living on a journalist salary,&#8221; Hasson added. &#8220;And so now, to see Fauci had the same concerns she did? Infuriating.&#8221;
A Senate committee recently voted to hold Fauci in contempt after he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights rather than answer questions before Congress. The contempt referral is currently sitting with the Justice Department for review.
Fauci, though, received a highly controversial preemptive pardon from then-President Joe Biden on his final day in office. The pardon covers federal offenses Fauci may have committed dating back to 2014, and grants him a full and unconditional pardon for any such offenses.

Dr. Fauci Testifies In House On COVID Origins

SEE IT: Fauci’s Texts About Vax Miscarriage Risk Don’t Line Up With Public Statements

SEE IT: Fauci Texted About COVID Vax Miscarriage Risk. That’s Not What He Said Publicly.

anthony fauci

COVID

COVID-19 Vaccine

fauci diaries

“This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” said Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) about her decision to freeze her eggs, a process she recently chose to livestream on her Instagram account. She went so far as to post a video of herself injecting fertility medications in a green room before going on ABC News’ “This Week” and formally announcing her decision on the show.
The idea that egg freezing allows women to gain more control over their lives is popular, and it&#8217;s certainly a comfort to many women who feel they aren&#8217;t ready for motherhood but don&#8217;t want to forgo that potential. However, for many women that sense of control is at least in part an illusion.
The process for freezing eggs is invasive — involving not only the injections that AOC showed herself taking (which are also often taken by women who are trying to conceive naturally), but an additional surgery for the egg retrieval itself, which can cause <a href="https://jfredrickson.com/how-much-money-did-my-unborn-child-make-you/">severe side effects</a> in extreme cases. <a href="https://www.fertstert.org/action/showPdf?pii=S0015-0282%2824%2900593-4">Only around 11% of patients</a> use their eggs within seven years, implying that most women who freeze their eggs either conceive naturally or choose not to have children at all. Of those who do use their frozen eggs, only around 29% report a live birth from egg freezing across all patients (although patients who are younger in age or have more frozen eggs have much higher success rates). That’s not even taking into consideration the financial cost of the procedure and the additional cost of the storage on top of that — <a href="https://www.fertilityiq.com/fertilityiq/articles/the-costs-of-egg-freezing">usually around</a> $15,000-20,000 upfront for the initial storage, and then $500-1000 annually after that so long as a woman chooses to keep her eggs frozen.
Is that physical and financial toll worth it for the cancer patient who wants to preserve her fertility? Or the woman who has lifelong medical issues that make natural conception difficult anyway? Without a doubt. But when it comes to the average, otherwise healthy woman who thinks this is a way to kick the can down the road indefinitely — maybe because she’s still waiting for the right man, maybe because she isn’t sure if she wants kids now but thinks she might at some point in the future — the calculus shifts: Egg freezing might still be the right individual decision for her (ultimately, only each individual woman can make that decision for herself), but it’s less of an obvious answer. That’s why it’s so important for those who have platforms to be honest about what egg freezing is — and what it isn’t.
This is what AOC claimed she was doing, <a href="https://abcnews.com/Politics/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-opens-decision-freeze-eggs/story?id=135496654">telling</a> ABC News, “In this political environment where this administration is denying reproductive care to women across the country, from abortion rights to the ability to carry out a healthy pregnancy, I think it&#8217;s important for us as leaders to have these conversations and share these processes, especially for working women across the country and normalize them.”
Well, maybe egg freezing is truly a political decision for her. That shouldn’t be surprising in her case: She’s one of the 535 most powerful people in the country, and even among them is one of the handful of congresspeople who’s a household name. Whether you love her or can’t stand her, you have to admit she’s great at social media and getting her name everywhere. There’s a good chance she might want to run for her party’s nomination in 2028, seeing that she is, for the first time, old enough to run, at 36 today and 39 by Inauguration Day 2029.
That is clearly a unique position to be in, and one that likely no other person in American political history has occupied: to be a woman who’s young enough to have children but old enough to be president, and politically accomplished enough that it wouldn’t be that out of the blue if she managed to pull off a win. Crazier things have happened.
Beyond that, she’s been in a relationship with her college sweetheart for around 15 years and engaged to him for over four years. It would be impolite to speculate as to why they haven’t gotten married yet or had children yet, but, hey, we can shrug and say: Elites, they’re not like the rest of us.
And yet that&#8217;s exactly the issue here. AOC claimed to be speaking to &#8220;working women&#8221; by posting her egg-freezing journey online, but she&#8217;s too far removed from their day-to-day concerns to grasp how unique her situation is, despite feigning &#8220;relatability.” The truth is, the average 36-year-old with a fiancé she&#8217;s dated for nearly half her life and been engaged to for four years is not a famous congresswoman eyeing a presidential bid, but is very likely a woman in a dead-end relationship who might be feeling more immediate desperation to start a family. Maybe she&#8217;d benefit from freezing her eggs, maybe not, but independent of that choice, the biggest question facing her is whether or not her fiancé will marry her and have kids with her now, or whether she’ll cut him loose and find someone who will.
In other words, AOC is pushing a luxury belief: the lifestyle she’s promoting of endless, timeless choice — even as pregnancy statistically becomes more and more difficult for the average woman with age, especially for those who are financially constrained and can only afford so many cycles of IVF — is not going to work for most normal women, whose preferences are necessarily shaped by the fact that they, unlike AOC, are not rich and famous and powerful. 
Here’s one place where AOC could use her position in society to help ordinary women who are desperately seeking IVF: The Trump administration has championed IVF accessibility, with a particular focus on lowering costs of commonly prescribed fertility medications through TrumpRx. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services even <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/profile/after-two-ectopic-pregnancies-ivf-gave-this-oklahoma-woman-the-family-she-thought-she-had-lost/">estimate</a> savings of up to $2,200 per cycle on medication, which is a huge amount in savings for hardworking couples trying to expand their families. Rather than pretending that the Trump administration has been uniquely against IVF and other fertility treatments, AOC could reach out across the aisle and help the women she claims to champion.
Let’s hope she puts aside partisan politics and gets to work instead of posting stories on Instagram so more Americans can have the babies they want. And let’s also hope things work out for her and she can have the babies she wants, too.
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Neeraja Deshpande is a policy analyst at <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/">Independent Women</a>.
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AOC Is Selling Women A Dream That Comes With A Brutal Reality

alexandria ocasio-cortez

fertility

freezing eggs

Upstream

The promise of commercial surrogacy was straightforward: Adults who could not have children naturally could build families through this technology, and women willing to carry pregnancies could earn money to help them do so. Everyone involved, it seemed, could freely exercise choice to enter the contract.
But a court battle now moving between Alaska and California has exposed one of the hardest questions facing the future of reproductive law: Can a contract governing pregnancy ever overcome the bodily autonomy of the woman carrying the child?
The <a href="https://mustreadalaska.com/after-attempting-to-force-alaskan-surrogate-mother-to-undergo-late-term-abortion-california-couple-persuades-alaska-superior-court-to-relinquish-jurisdiction-over-babys-birthplace/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://mustreadalaska.com/after-attempting-to-force-alaskan-surrogate-mother-to-undergo-late-term-abortion-california-couple-persuades-alaska-superior-court-to-relinquish-jurisdiction-over-babys-birthplace/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1786108262664000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1T8E-fhXfblq468ZhYuarD">case</a> involves McKenna West, an Alaskan nurse and single mother of two who agreed to become a gestational surrogate for a same-sex male couple from California through a commercial surrogacy agency.
At around 20 weeks of pregnancy, doctors reportedly diagnosed the baby with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a serious congenital heart defect. The condition requires major surgeries after birth, but it is not necessarily fatal. According to <a href="https://www.nyp.org/pediatrics/heart/hypoplastic-left-heart-syndrome-hlhs/treatment" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nyp.org/pediatrics/heart/hypoplastic-left-heart-syndrome-hlhs/treatment&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1786108262664000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2gE7I-DLI1BKHpkBZEka3l">New York Presbyterian Hospital</a>, babies with HLHS who undergo the required staged surgeries have approximately a 75% chance of surviving to age five, while those who reach their fifth birthday have around a 90% chance of surviving into adulthood.
According to West’s legal filings, the California couple sought to invoke a provision in their surrogacy agreement requiring an abortion in the event of a serious fetal abnormality. West refused, arguing that the condition was treatable. She offered to take responsibility for the child herself, allowing the intended parents to walk away from financial and parental obligations. West says the couple responded with threats of litigation seeking $250,000 if she did not comply. The couple disputes West’s account.
The couple has since succeeded in moving the dispute toward California courts, arguing that the agreement was governed by California law (a jurisdiction far more sympathetic to surrogacy arrangements than many other states).
The case has attracted attention because it exposes a tension at the heart of modern debates about reproductive autonomy. For decades, one of the central arguments in abortion law and politics has been that pregnancy is a uniquely personal experience because it takes place inside a woman’s body. The state cannot compel a woman to continue a pregnancy, it is argued — nor can any other person, least of all a man, claim authority over that decision. The slogans made the position clear: “my body my choice!” and “no uterus, no opinion!”
Surrogacy introduces a new complication. The woman carrying the pregnancy may have entered into a detailed agreement. The commissioning parents may have contributed genetic material, spent significant sums of money, and built their hopes around becoming parents. The contract may attempt to anticipate difficult medical circumstances.
But here is exactly where contracting the most primal and intimate of human acts — mothering — cannot be reduced to a simple service agreement.
The questions facing the court now provoke complicated challenges to progressive orthodoxy. If a woman’s bodily autonomy is supposedly a fundamental right that must be preserved at all costs, as Californian institutions have declared they believe, how can that same autonomy ever be surrendered by contract — especially to men?
The West case is not the only dispute raising these questions. In Ontario, Canada, a separate <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/couple-sues-ontario-surrogate-mother-who-refused-to-abort-fetus" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nationalpost.com/news/couple-sues-ontario-surrogate-mother-who-refused-to-abort-fetus&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1786108262665000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2i-xZQ3VUFuUmt3yujDAi_">legal battle</a> emerged after a surrogate mother refused to abort the 22-week-old fetus she was carrying following prenatal findings of a cleft lip, possible cleft palate, and a minor heart defect. The commissioning parents had requested the abortion via a legally worded letter, informing the woman that “although very difficult, this decision is free and informed.” The surrogate, however, refused the demand for an abortion and continued the pregnancy since the conditions were treatable. The child was later born with a cleft lip, and the parents filed a lawsuit alleging, among other claims, that the surrogate put the baby’s health at risk by negligent behavior and “failing to follow the [parents’] direction regarding decisions affecting the fetus’s medical care.”
Both cases reveal the limits of treating surrogacy as simply an extension of freedom of contract. Modern societies rightly value contracts; they allow people to make choices, plan their futures, and pursue their goals. But contracts have always had boundaries. A person cannot legally sell himself into slavery, even through a voluntary agreement. Human organs cannot simply become commodities because both buyer and seller consent. Some things are protected precisely because they involve human dignity; pregnancy should be one of them.
Indeed, the true cost of surrogacy is often borne by a party who is not even a signatory to the contract at all: the child.
A child cannot negotiate the terms of a surrogacy agreement. A child cannot consent to the circumstances of conception or determine what responsibilities adults owe her if disagreements arise. Adults may enter contracts before birth, but children must live with the consequences afterward.
Psychologists warn that early separation of infants from a parent can produce lasting harm: post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, attachment disorders, developmental delays, and behavioral issues in later childhood. We don’t allow puppies or kittens to be separated from their mothers until at least 8 weeks following their birth. The commodification of human newborns is striking in comparison.
That does not mean every commissioning parent has ill intent. The pain of infertility can be profound. But compassion for adults should not prevent society from asking whether every aspect of human reproduction, including a human life itself, can be successfully governed by contract.
America has long championed the idea that liberal societies should promote individual freedom. But freedom has never meant that everything can be bought, sold, or transferred. Can human life really be governed by a commercial framework? The decisions made by the courts on these radical cases will set a profound cultural precedent on that very question.
***
Lois McLatchie Miller (<a href="https://x.com/LoisMcLatch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@loismclatch</a>) is a writer and social commentator from Great Britain, focusing on the state of free speech, faith, and family across the globe.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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With Surrogacy, Is It Still ‘My Body, My Choice’?

In California, Attorney General Rob Bonta is attempting to smother two pro-life nonprofits through his threat of a $20 million fine for giving desperate mothers a lifeline after the reality of the abortion pill sets in, filling them with grief, regret, and the realization that they have wreaked havoc on the delicate balancing act that is the human body’s hormones.
While the Food and Drug Administration conducts an investigation into the safety of mifepristone, nothing has been done on the side of the Trump administration to stop states such as California from canceling those organizations that are offering women another option, a second chance.
What the nonprofits already know is that these pills are not safe; they are not pro-woman, pro-feminism, pro-anything-good. They are simply pro-depression and pro-death. The Trump administration owes much of its satisfaction and success to the MAHA movement. The attorney general’s actions are very anti-MAHA, and here’s why.
Thousands of women are being sold on chemical abortions. In 2023, 63% of over a million U.S. abortions were chemically <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/2024/03/medication-abortion-accounted-63-all-us-abortions-2023-increase-53-2020">induced</a>.
For young women around the country with an undesired pregnancy and the aversion to facing the natural consequences of their actions, two quick pills might seem like a good option. Chemical abortion on the surface feels simple. One pill, wait a day or two, another pill, a “heavy period”, and voila, all done.
But that is a lie.
Chemical abortion is not a two pills, one heavy period situation. The human body, especially during pregnancy, is sustained through a series of carefully balanced hormones. It’s like an algebra equation, one mistake and the entire equation falls to pieces. Any imbalance can lead to disastrous consequences for both mother and child, and the abortion pill is designed to create an imbalance.
The first pill, mifepristone, blocks progesterone, a necessary hormone for the pregnancy to continue. At this point, the baby is cut off from the nutrients needed to live, and the uterine lining is softened.
For the abortion to be completed, a second pill, misoprostol, must be taken. Misoprostol causes the woman’s body to induce a period, ejecting the baby from the body. After taking misoprostol, a woman can expect to experience any combination of abdominal pain, weakness, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting while her body is forced to end the pregnancy early.
If this sounds unnatural, it is. Equilibrium is lost. The equation is imbalanced.
For the mother, going through with a chemical abortion can lead to serious consequences, such as hemorrhaging and surgery later on to remove any tissue or baby parts that remain behind. These are not one in a million cases, as over 10% of chemical abortions lead to complications. One in ten women who take the abortion pills is going to suffer for it. Some will die.
Sad as this is, there is hope during the one to two-day window between pill one and pill number two by taking progesterone. This restores the body’s supply of this hormone, leading to the life of the baby being saved in almost 70% of cases and a restoration of equilibrium in the mother. No more life-altering side effects.
Nonprofit organizations have had a hands-on role in providing the necessary progesterone to a young woman who realizes she has instigated a hormonal nightmare in her body. Nonprofits such as Heartbeat International and Real Options are now being targeted by the state of California.
Without evidence as to what these organizations are doing wrong, Bonta has threatened to fine these nonprofit organizations a debilitating $20 million for their work in promoting access to a hormone that does nothing but restore lost equilibrium to the body.
The allegation? Heartbeat International and Real Options are violating Unfair Competition and False Advertising laws.
The attorney general presents no evidence. The only thing these organizations have done is tell women that there is another option: that they can restore their bodies to their former state of equilibrium.
Studies have shown that abortion is not a simple procedure, one with an easy recovery. Women across the country find themselves in a bathroom, staring at the tiny shape of a human being on the floor while their body continues to ache and bleed, in a chair, staring at the back of a monitor that, on the other side, shows an image of a baby that is moving and growing in the safety of its mother’s womb.
If anyone deserves to be accused of violating unfair competition and false advertising laws, it would be the same people who coerce and manipulate women into undergoing a medical procedure and hiding the side effects, the same people who advocate for the mutilation of children outside the womb.
Politicians, columnists, podcasters, and psychologists scratch their heads, asking why so much of the population is so depressed and anxious when a glaring statistic is being buried in plain sight: women who have undergone an abortion are <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3395931/#S0004">likely</a> to experience depression or anxiety, and fear that they will not be able to conceive again.
Red states throughout the country have banned the distribution of abortion drugs, but that does not stop the easy passage of drugs across state lines.
It is natural for sex to lead to the conception of a child; it is not natural to stunt that growth and flush the baby away like a parasite. Evidence shows that carrying a child has positive implications for a woman’s long-term health. Pregnancy is a healthy, natural thing. Not something that should be ended with a quick trip to the drug store.
While two major nonprofits are fighting in court over false advertising and unfair competition laws, the real false advertisers (Planned Parenthood and blue states passing out abortion pills like candy) are degrading the overall health and well-being of the country, one woman at a time. And taxpayer dollars are paying for it. Again.
***
Terry Schilling is president of the American Principles Project.

birth control pill RU-486

California AG Threatens Non-Profits With $20 Million Fine For Saving Babies And Women

Abortion Drug

DW Opinion

mifepristone

planned parenthood

pregnancy centers

This was originally published on <a href="https://x.com/RepKatCammack/status/2069856297353191645">X Articles</a>.
***
Recently, I was interviewed about sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill and the work we&#8217;re doing to protect women.
The host pivoted to one of the most painful experiences of my life: an ectopic pregnancy that nearly killed me.
I was brutally transparent.
She then told me she was going to air it on Father&#8217;s Day. The first Father&#8217;s Day my family would experience since our rainbow baby was born.
I asked her to hold off on publishing that portion of the interview for security reasons. I told her the specifics in detail.
She didn&#8217;t care.
She denied my request, saying the story was &#8220;in the public interest.&#8221;
Fine.
Then let&#8217;s tell the whole story.
Why I Asked Her to Wait
I have received hundreds of death threats.
Against me. Against my daughter. Against my team.
Recently, one man who made specific threats against my family skipped his court date. Law enforcement cannot find him. They are still looking for him.
This was the issue that brought this man to my doorstep. That is why I asked her to hold off until they could locate him.
It wasn&#8217;t because the facts were inconvenient, as you&#8217;ve been led to believe.
That was the environment in which this interview aired.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1124033" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat1.jpg" alt="" width="1284" height="304" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat1.jpg 1284w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat1-300x71.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat1-1024x242.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat1-768x182.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1284px) 100vw, 1284px" />
THAT is why I asked for a delay.
Not because I wanted the story buried.
Not because I was unwilling to talk about what happened.
I was asking for time while law enforcement searched for someone who had threatened my family.
There is a difference.
A very important one.
Within hours of Tara Palmeri publishing that interview, new threats began coming in.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1124037" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat2.jpg" alt="" width="552" height="552" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat2.jpg 552w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat2-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat2-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes=" (max-width: 552px) 100vw, 552px" />
THAT is why I asked her to wait. To protect my child. Not to hide the truth. I never asked her to cut that portion — just to delay until they found this guy who threatened my family.
Again, she didn&#8217;t care. She chose clicks.
It&#8217;s clear that on social media today, the reward for nastiness and bad behavior is clicks and shares.
That&#8217;s the entire business model. And Tara Palmeri proved it.
Now Let Me Address the Lie Being Spread About Me
I had a cornual ectopic pregnancy — one of the rarest and most dangerous forms of ectopic pregnancy that exists.
Once the rupture happens, the mother bleeds out. That&#8217;s what I was facing.
In May of 2024, I woke up hemorrhaging.
I took a pregnancy test, found out I was pregnant, and immediately thought I was miscarrying.
After multiple ultrasounds, doctors concluded I was approximately five weeks pregnant.
They couldn&#8217;t find a heartbeat.
Matt and I were devastated.
My HCG levels continued to rise.
Doctors warned me that rupture could happen at any time.
If it did, I faced catastrophic internal bleeding, permanent organ damage, and potentially death.
One physician explained that if a rupture occurred, the window to save my life could be measured in minutes.
Not hours. Minutes.
They told me my baby had died.
The treatment I received was methotrexate, a drug that has been used for decades to treat ectopic pregnancies. It&#8217;s a common cancer drug.
The purpose of my treatment wasn&#8217;t to terminate a viable pregnancy. It was to prevent a rupture that could have killed me.
It has never been classified as an abortion.
Not in Florida. Not in any of the 50 states. Not by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Not by major medical organizations. Not even Planned Parenthood.
For years, even Planned Parenthood&#8217;s own website stated:
&#8220;Treating an ectopic pregnancy isn&#8217;t the same thing as getting an abortion.&#8221;
Planned Parenthood said it.
Then — after Dobbs — they quietly removed that language.
Because the truth had become inconvenient to the narrative they wanted to run.
The receipts exist.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1124041" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat3.jpg" alt="" width="1320" height="2548" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat3.jpg 1320w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat3-155x300.jpg 155w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat3-298x576.jpg 298w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat3-768x1482.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat3-796x1536.jpg 796w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat3-1061x2048.jpg 1061w" sizes=" (max-width: 1320px) 100vw, 1320px" />
What Florida Law Actually Said
Another claim being spread online is that Florida law prohibited my treatment or the treatment of ectopics, miscarriages or stillbirths.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1124043" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat4.jpg" alt="" width="687" height="386" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat4.jpg 687w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/Kat4-300x169.jpg 300w" sizes=" (max-width: 687px) 100vw, 687px" />
It did not.
The law contained explicit protections for treatment of ectopic pregnancies and medical emergencies threatening the life of the mother.
The words are in the statute.
The authority existed.
So why was there confusion? Why was there a delay in my care that night?
A pro-abortion group spent millions geofencing false ads around Florida&#8217;s hospitals, telling doctors and nurses they&#8217;d face criminal prosecution for treating miscarriages and ectopics.
The nurse treating me showed me one of those ads on her phone.
It was a lie.
And it created confusion at exactly the moment clarity mattered most.
Florida ultimately threatened legal action over those ads because they misrepresented what the law actually said.
THOSE groups and those advertisements endangered women.
And now many of those same groups are using my story — my baby — to push the exact same lie. Shame on them.
The same groups that ran these ads are now attacking me because they know that their pro-abortion mission can&#8217;t survive if people know the truth: miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and stillbirths are not abortions.
What People Are Still Getting Wrong
I never spoke to Governor Ron DeSantis. I never spoke to anyone on his team.
I received no special treatment. None. Ever.
I got treated because I was relentless. I read the law myself out loud from my phone to the doctors and administrators in that room.
I asked questions. I pushed for answers. I fought for myself.
Afterward, I couldn&#8217;t stop thinking about one question:
What happens to the woman who doesn&#8217;t know the law? What happens to the woman who is scared, exhausted, or too sick to fight? What happens to the woman who doesn&#8217;t have the energy to keep fighting?
That question is why I haven&#8217;t stopped talking.
The Conversation We Need To Have
The pro-abortion lobby is demanding that you stop applying logic.
They want you to believe a baby is precious and worth grieving when it&#8217;s wanted — and simultaneously a clump of cells unworthy of any protection when it&#8217;s not.
Both cannot be true at the same time.
That is not a political opinion. It&#8217;s the most basic principle in all of human reasoning. Aristotle called it the principle of non-contradiction: a thing cannot both be and not be the same thing simultaneously.
They need you to abandon logic to accept their position. Don&#8217;t.
They need you to believe that a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy or a stillbirth belongs in the same conversation as elective abortions of healthy babies and moms. Their entire agenda depends on it.
Here&#8217;s the truth
To every woman who has experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, or ectopic pregnancy:
Your baby was real.
Your grief is real.
Your loss is real.
And no activist gets to use that pain as a political weapon.
We need a national conversation about miscarriages, stillbirths, and ectopic pregnancies — what they are, what they aren&#8217;t, and what real gaps in maternal and prenatal healthcare look like. We need real solutions. Not clickbait bullsh*t that does nothing to help women and babies in every corner of the country.
We need to have this conversation so we can take real action.
That&#8217;s why I am still talking.
That&#8217;s why I will keep fighting.
And that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m not going anywhere.
Let&#8217;s have the real conversation.
***
<a href="https://x.com/RepKatCammack">Rep. Kat Cammack</a> serves as the U.S. Representative for Florida’s 3rd Congressional District.

Hospital room with bassinet and medical equipment

Kat Cammack: The Truth About My Ectopic Pregnancy – And The Lies That Followed

Ectopic pregnancy

Kat Cammack

Pro-Abortion

Second Lady Usha Vance delivered a rare rebuke to The New York Times over an article essentially claiming that women within President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration were using maternity fashion to weaponize pregnancy.
Vance, who is pregnant with her fourth child with husband and Vice President JD Vance, mocked the outlet&#8217;s attempt to make her wardrobe political and made it clear that her maternity fashion choices were typically born of just three things: necessity, comfort, and economy.
&#8220;Now that we know the political significance of my $8.75 coral maternity dress from Old Navy, can’t wait to hear what the New York Times has to say about my elastic-waistband pants and compression socks!&#8221; Vance posted via X. &#8220;In the meantime, enjoy my pregnancy fashion (or lack thereof) and a good story with your kids on &#8216;Storytime with the Second Lady.'&#8221;
Along with her caption, Vance shared a video — also featuring the vice president — of herself wearing the dress in question as he read aloud from A. A. Milne&#8217;s classic, &#8220;Winnie the Pooh.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
And here’s the receipt! <a href="https://t.co/tgICmpbapQ">pic.twitter.com/tgICmpbapQ</a>
— Second Lady Usha Vance (@SLOTUS) <a href="https://x.com/SLOTUS/status/2069857037303816372?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
For good measure, Vance followed up with a screenshot of her receipt showing that she had, in fact, purchased the dress from Old Navy. It also showed that the coral-colored &#8220;Asymmetrical Shoulder Maxi Dress,&#8221; originally $49.99, had been marked down to $12.99 and she had saved an additional $3.74— making her final total $8.75.
And while that choice may have been one of convenience and economy, Vance said in March that being pregnant as the Second Lady of the United States meant that she necessarily had to change her style, mainly because her position dictated a number of events that she would have to attend — and many of those would not be held in places where leggings and sweatpants were considered appropriate.
&#8220;I have to dress up a lot more. I enjoyed my last pregnancy — there were a lot of sweatpants. I was working from home and sometimes put a blazer on over what was under,&#8221; she told NBC at the time.
The article to which Vance was responding was published on Wednesday and was titled, &#8220;The Politics and Power of the Pregnancy Image.&#8221; If that did not paint a clear enough picture of the tone, the sub-headline removed all doubt: &#8220;Usha Vance, along with Katie Miller and Karoline Leavitt, shows how much is said by an expectant silhouette, without anyone saying a word.&#8221;
The article proceeded to accuse women within the Trump administration of flaunting their pregnancies to make a political point: this is what women are supposed to do — and how they are supposed to look.
<blockquote>
Together, the women have created a notably consistent, and somewhat paradigm-shifting, picture of the White House’s family and fertility platform.
If the bare-chested, muscled mixed martial arts fighters of the U.F.C. match that President Trump hosted on Flag Day were the poster guys for MAGA’s image of masculinity, then the pregnant women of Trump world are one half of their feminine counterparts. Along with the sheath-clad, lip-filled, pageant-haired Mar-a-Lago set, they offer an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement.
</blockquote>
Jill Filipovic, the host of the “<a class="css-yywogo" title="" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-week-in-women/id1632915204" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Week in Women</a>” podcast, suggested that even though it&#8217;s highly unlikely that the pregnancies were coordinated, the presentation appeared to be: &#8220;It almost feels like a memo went out. They have quite intentionally opted to present themselves as, ‘I am really pregnant, and this is what women were chosen to do,’ and they are happy to say that both with their looks and their mouths.”
Vance, quite clearly, said otherwise.
Miller, whose fourth child with longtime Trump adviser Stephen Miller was born just days before Father&#8217;s Day, <a href="https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2069874153717395901">weighed in</a> as well — and said that maternity fashion had been made more difficult as American birth rates had fallen.
&#8220;Over the last few years, many clothing brands have largely stopped producing maternity clothes that most women actually want to wear. @SLOTUS has done a phenomenal job curating affordable, fashionable options that make pregnancy fashion accessible. The root cause is sadly straightforward: with fewer women having babies, it’s likely become unprofitable for brands to invest in dedicated maternity lines,&#8221; she said.

Second Lady Fires Back After NYT Says Trump Admin’s Women Are Weaponizing Maternity Fashion

Usha Vance Takes Rare Swipe At Media Over Maternity Fashion

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media

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Usha Vance

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Anne Hathaway recently announced that she is <a href="https://people.com/anne-hathaway-focused-on-family-prepares-for-baby-no-3-exclusive-source-12004387">expecting a third baby</a>. There is only one appropriate response to that news, especially from people who claim to value children and families, and it goes like this: Congratulations, what a blessing!
Instead, the Academy Award winning actress’s pregnancy reveal has been met with a cascade of judgment. Why? Because the married mother of two is 43 years old. And that’s too old for new motherhood, say many self-professed traditionalists. 
One post on X asked that we “<a href="https://x.com/slxthkween/status/2068109197955445222?s=46">not normalize</a> having kids at 40” since babies born that late in a mother’s life might not know their older grandparents. Other critics were even <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/anne-hathaway-is-pregnant-at-43-and">more unkind</a>, pointing out the increased likelihood of birth defects in babies born to older mothers. 
This negative response to Hathaway’s pregnancy announcement is both mean-spirited and misplaced. While conservatives are right to push back on today’s elite scorn for young marriage and family formation, older child-bearing deserves support as well. There is no contradiction here.
In fact, the historical precedent that traditionalists claim to support involves more, not less, pregnancy for 40-something women — along with more, not less, pregnancy for 20-something ones. 
A healthy, family-centered society would seek a return to both sides of that erstwhile reality, not just one or the other. 
Older Mothers and Antinatalism
Negative reactions to Hathaway’s pregnancy are rooted in conservative anger at an elite culture in which babies are often treated like commodities to be obtained at will rather than honored as gifts to be received in faith and humility. And, indeed, the zeitgeist among educated Americans today does attempt to pit 20-something marriage and motherhood against women’s self-actualization, equality, and flourishing. As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-dating-reality-check?author=Elizabeth+Grace+Matthew&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Dating+Reality+Check">I have written</a>, this is a grave mistake predicated on a series of lies. 
So, yes, 20-something marriage and motherhood should be the norm. In a culture with biological and moral reality principles, such a norm would not only be accepted but taken for granted. The rootless malaise and extended adolescence afflicting our youth, hollowing our social institutions, and ultimately reducing our population are predominantly a product of the narcissism that ensues when chronological adults remain de facto children instead of raising some. 
And, yes, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-fertility-safety-net-women-were-sold-is-leaving-some-with-fewer-options-than-expected?author=Neeraja+Deshpande&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Fertility+Safety+Net+Women+Were+Sold+Is+Leaving+Some+With+Fewer+Options+Than+Expected">technological aids to reproduction</a>, such as egg freezing and IVF, are too often marketed to make a woman believe that her biological clock can be outrun. Of course, pregnancy does get more dangerous — and, ultimately more difficult and then impossible — as women age. Moreover, these same technological aids can be and are too often used to <a href="https://www.cofertility.com/">negate or subvert</a> each child’s right to a mother and a father.
For the True Pronatalist, Life — and Openness to It — Doesn’t End at 35
But a preference for 20-something marriage and child-bearing and the embrace of 40-something child-bearing are in no way mutually exclusive. In fact, they&#8217;re complements. Not just historically, though that is true (40-something women with babies the same age as or younger than their oldest grandchildren were once commonplace), but also culturally and morally. 
A society that is open to life — that sees children not as commodities, props, or impediments, but as gifts — would and should expect messier and less optimized decisions around child-bearing, among women of all ages. Yes, this means 20-somethings prioritizing marriage and welcoming children before today’s elite parenting gurus might deem them “ready.” But it also means women in their mid-to-late-30s or early 40s approaching the question of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/on-geriatric-pregnancy">whether to welcome</a> that third, fourth, or fifth baby in a spirit of generosity and humility.
Unfortunately, progressives and conservatives alike often approach the question of parenthood as though it’s about parents, when in fact it should be about children. A curated commodification of parenthood as a lifestyle choice with predetermined requirements and rewards is what leads young couples to delay childbearing until everything is “just so” as they see it. It also leads so-called traditionalists to attack 40-something mothers for bearing children when things are not “just so” as they see it anymore. 
Sure, you won’t have as much time with a baby born when you’re 42 as you will with one born when you’re 22. And indeed, starting a family at 25 is better in all kinds of ways than starting one at 35. 
This is all true, and it is all irrelevant in relation to the pregnancy announcement of a 40-something mother. 
The overarching fact of Hathaway’s pregnancy, as of every pregnancy, is that a unique image-bearer of God is soon to enter the world. That individual — that person (who those criticizing Hathaway disproportionately believe is a wholly formed soul and body awaiting his or her birth) — could not be born to any other woman or at any other time. 
Pope Leo XIV’s mother, for example, was 43 years old when the future pontiff was born in 1955. 
Perhaps we all, progressives and conservatives alike, should be a bit more content to let God do His job and to stay in our all-too-human lane. 
***
Elizabeth Grace Matthew writes about books, education, and culture, including <a href="https://elizabethgracematthew.substack.com/about">on Substack</a>.

GettyImages-2278626786

What Anne Hathaway’s Baby News Reveals About Modern Culture

Celebrities

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
The moment you get pregnant, it&#8217;s as if your family, your friends, and even complete strangers are issued a license to offer unsolicited opinions about your body, your eating habits, your birth plan, and occasionally your entire future.
As I write this, I&#8217;m less than a month away from giving birth to our son — or, as I prefer to call it, serving him with his official eviction notice. I&#8217;ve always been jealous of those women who say they love being pregnant. That is not me.
What I do love, though, is motherhood. It&#8217;s been by far the best chapter of my life. I&#8217;m obsessed with being a mom, and it&#8217;s made me a better person in more ways than I can count. If having children didn&#8217;t require pregnancy, I&#8217;d probably have 20 of them. It&#8217;s the cooking process that&#8217;s a horror show for me.
From the moment I get pregnant, my body seems to launch a full-scale rebellion. I swell up. Think of Violet Beauregarde from &#8220;Willy Wonka.&#8221; That&#8217;s me. I spend nine months counting down the days until I can comfortably tie my own shoes again.
Part of the reason pregnancy is such a sensitive subject for me is that my first experience was emotionally and physically traumatic. Around the 20-week mark, my husband and I were told our daughter was measuring small and might not be getting enough nutrition. Thankfully, she arrived perfectly healthy. She&#8217;s still petite and still not a big eater, which turns out is just who she is.
As difficult as that pregnancy was mentally and physically, it paled in comparison to the fear. For half my pregnancy, I lived with the possibility that something might be wrong with my baby, and there was nothing I could do except wait. Everything hurt, but the uncertainty hurt the most.
By the time it was over, I was convinced I never wanted to do it again. Thankfully, God had other plans. And my daughter can&#8217;t wait to have a built-in best friend.
What I wasn&#8217;t prepared for the second time around was how many people would treat my pregnancy like a public discussion forum. So before you approach a pregnant woman with an observation, a prediction, a warning, or a &#8220;helpful&#8221; piece of advice, allow me to offer a few examples of what not to say.
1. &#8220;Are you going to breastfeed?&#8221;
I have never understood why complete strangers feel entitled to ask pregnant women about their future feeding plans. Imagine walking up to someone and asking detailed questions about their breasts. Weird, right? Yet somehow, the moment a woman gets pregnant, all social norms go out the window and everyone suddenly becomes a lactation consultant.
The truth is that breastfeeding can be an incredibly personal and emotional topic. Some women breastfeed for years. Some can&#8217;t breastfeed despite desperately wanting to. Some choose not to. Some supplement with formula. And some spend weeks crying in the middle of the night feeling like a failure because breastfeeding isn&#8217;t going the way they hoped.
Before my daughter was born, I thought breastfeeding would come naturally. It didn&#8217;t. Because she was so small, she was losing weight, and I wasn&#8217;t producing enough milk to keep up with her needs. I ended up supplementing with formula during a nationwide formula shortage. (Living through that is a story for another day.)
Like so many parts of motherhood, feeding your baby comes with a learning curve, frustration, guilt, and plenty of moments when you wonder if you&#8217;re doing enough. A pregnant woman doesn&#8217;t owe anyone an explanation for how she plans to feed her baby. If she wants to talk about it, she will. If not, trust me, there are plenty of other topics to discuss.
2. &#8220;Sleep while you can.&#8221; 
 
This one always makes me laugh because by the third trimester, sleep is already a distant memory. I haven&#8217;t slept well in months. Between the constant trips to the bathroom, the inability to get comfortable, the back pain, and a tiny human using my ribs as a jungle gym at 2 a.m., I can assure you that I&#8217;m not exactly banking extra sleep hours before the baby arrives.
Whenever someone tells me to &#8220;sleep while you can,&#8221; I&#8217;m always tempted to ask if they have any suggestions on how, exactly, I&#8217;m supposed to accomplish that.
The truth is that newborn exhaustion is real. I know I&#8217;ll probably feel like I&#8217;ve been hit with a serious case of jet lag for a while. But at least when the baby arrives, I&#8217;ll finally get to meet the tiny roommate who&#8217;s been keeping me awake all night. And somehow that makes it feel worth it.
3. &#8220;You&#8217;ve gained a lot of weight!&#8221;
I&#8217;m on the shorter side and usually weigh around 100 pounds. So when I go from 100 pounds to nearly 200 pounds during pregnancy, my appearance changes. Dramatically.
One day, while I was eight months pregnant, I was on FaceTime with a close family member. We weren&#8217;t discussing pregnancy, weight gain, or anything remotely related to my appearance when she suddenly stopped and pointed out the obvious.
&#8220;You don&#8217;t even look like yourself,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Your face is huge — you have a double chin — you&#8217;re usually a stick. I just don&#8217;t get it.&#8221;
Then came the follow-up.
&#8220;Maybe you&#8217;re just holding the camera too close to your face.&#8221;
Sadly, I wasn&#8217;t. If anything, the camera was farther away than normal because I was trying to fit my entire face into the frame.
As if that wasn&#8217;t enough, a few months earlier my husband committed his own pregnancy-related offense.
Before I tell this story, I need to defend him: My husband is one of the kindest people I know. He&#8217;s also the type of person who occasionally sticks his foot in his mouth.
During this pregnancy, I started a new remote job. A few months in, my boss wanted the new employees to get together for a team bonding trip. For most people, this probably sounds fun. For me, it was my worst nightmare.
I love clothes. I love dressing up. And suddenly I had nothing professional that fit me. I was already feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, and now I was about to meet all of my coworkers for the first time while six months pregnant and feeling approximately the size of a small parade float.
For days, it was all I talked about. I worried about what I was going to wear. I worried about how I looked. I worried about making a first impression while feeling physically miserable. At one point, I realized the only clothes I could fit into were my husband&#8217;s. I told him I was going to have to raid his closet because baby boy had made me too big to fit into any of my own clothes.
Trying to be helpful, he reminded me that I wasn&#8217;t just gaining weight because I was growing a human.
&#8220;I think the strawberry milkshakes from McDonald&#8217;s are playing a role too,&#8221; he said.
Now, to be fair, I had developed a slight addiction to McDonald&#8217;s strawberry milkshakes. So he wasn&#8217;t wrong.
But there are moments in life when being correct is not the goal. This was one of those moments.
To his credit, my husband spends the other 99% of his time making me feel beautiful, especially when I feel my worst. He simply learned the hard way that when a pregnant woman is venting about her appearance, she is not looking for a detailed breakdown of her eating habits.
And that&#8217;s really the point of both stories. If a pregnant woman has gained weight, trust me, she knows.
4.&#8221;Just wait&#8230;&#8221; 
If you&#8217;ve ever been pregnant, you know exactly what I&#8217;m talking about. No matter what you&#8217;re experiencing, someone always has a &#8220;just wait&#8221; ready to go.
Tired?
&#8220;Just wait until the baby gets here.&#8221;
Feeling overwhelmed?
&#8220;Just wait until they&#8217;re crawling.&#8221;
Then it&#8217;s walking.
Then it&#8217;s potty training.
Then it&#8217;s school.
Then it&#8217;s teenagers.
Then, somehow, it&#8217;s grandchildren.
It&#8217;s as if pregnancy and motherhood are one giant game of people trying to convince you that your current stage isn&#8217;t actually difficult because something harder is always coming.
The problem is that these comments almost always come from a good place. Most people aren&#8217;t trying to be negative. They&#8217;re trying to relate. They&#8217;re trying to share their own experiences.
But when you&#8217;re pregnant, especially for the first time, it can feel like nobody is allowing you to enjoy the stage you&#8217;re in.
Not every moment of pregnancy is magical. Trust me, I&#8217;ve spent enough time swollen, uncomfortable, and unable to tie my shoes to know that. But not every moment has to be overshadowed by what&#8217;s coming next, either.
Instead of saying &#8220;just wait,&#8221; try saying, &#8220;You&#8217;re going to love being a mom.&#8221;
After all the swelling, anxiety, weight gain, sleepless nights, the comments on this list, that&#8217;s the part that matters most. Honestly, I can&#8217;t wait. Every minute with my daughter has somehow been better than the last. The lack of sleep, the endless messes, the tantrums, the worries — it&#8217;s all been worth every second.
5. &#8220;Because she&#8217;s fat.&#8221; 
 
This one is by far my favorite because it came from my innocent daughter, who was three years old at the time and therefore legally exempt from having a filter. As every parent knows, toddlers have a unique gift for saying exactly what they&#8217;re thinking with zero regard for timing, context, or social consequences.
It was the week of Valentine&#8217;s Day, and I was driving around town (probably headed to McDonald&#8217;s for a strawberry milkshake, if we&#8217;re being honest) while happily working my way through the Valentine&#8217;s Day candy my husband had bought me.
My younger sister called, and because the phone was connected to the car, the conversation was on speaker.
&#8220;It sounds like you&#8217;re eating,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;I am,&#8221; I replied. &#8220;I&#8217;m eating the Valentine&#8217;s Day candy Hunter got me.&#8221;
Without missing a beat, a tiny voice chimed in from the backseat.
&#8220;Because she&#8217;s fat!&#8221;
Silence.
Now, in fairness to Rayne, watching her mom transform into a swollen, waddling version of herself over the course of several months was probably a little confusing. Thankfully, my sister jumped in immediately.
&#8220;Rayne! She&#8217;s pregnant! Tell your mom she&#8217;s beautiful.&#8221;
There was a brief pause. Then came the response I&#8217;ll never forget.
&#8220;Mom, you&#8217;re beautiful — and fat.&#8221;
Honestly, I don&#8217;t know whether to laugh or cry every time I think about it.
Of course, it turned into a teachable moment about how we don&#8217;t ever use the word &#8220;fat.&#8221; But it was so innocent. She wasn&#8217;t trying to hurt my feelings. She was simply making an observation in the brutally honest way only a three-year-old can.
And that&#8217;s why it remains one of my favorite pregnancy stories and one of my favorite examples of what not to say to a pregnant woman.
So if someone you know is pregnant, here&#8217;s my advice: Tell her she looks beautiful, ask how she&#8217;s feeling, and then immediately stop talking. It&#8217;s a strategy that&#8217;s worked surprisingly well for my husband ever since he survived the Great McDonald&#8217;s Strawberry Milkshake Incident of 2026.

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Five Things You Should Never Say To A Pregnant Woman

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***
I grew up a &#8220;child on the margins,&#8221; a child of addicts and therefore a child of chaos. I had what I considered to be a normal life: school, dance, parents arguing, checking pulses, and praying the lights turned on. My parents loved me greatly, but their love was limited to what they knew. My parents’ addiction existed long before I did; it was no surprise that it stayed as I grew up. I learned to be the responsible one of the family.
When I was 14, we lost my dad to his addiction, and the last thread of our chaotic lives began to unravel. My mom and I became unprovided for and unprotected. We were helpless and homeless for three months. We begged, borrowed, and stole to get by. We wore every valuable possession we had left and stayed on guard. While we were homeless, my mom found friends more dangerous than the last few, and while she was in jail again, they turned on me and assaulted me. My dad’s death brought new extremes to my life that had only existed in nightmares.
When my mom was released from jail, we had a “new start.” I registered at a different school. But the cycle continued, and my mom went to jail again. This time it was different. The teachers, police officers, and caseworkers actually noticed me. They noticed not only that I was alone, but they also noticed me: my personality, preferences, and emotions. They wanted to know more and help me. As I began to trust them, I shared my trauma and memories with them and then with Harmony House Children’s Advocacy Center. This led to being placed in foster care.
In April 2020, I was placed with my foster family. With a simple hour-long drive and a duffel bag in the doorway, I was introduced to lively, fun, healthy, and joyful chaos, the type of chaos caused by happy children rather than unhappy adults. The family had two loving parents, five biological children, and one other foster child. They all stood and stared as they watched “the new kid,” eyes full of curiosity and compassion.
After much food, play, “trauma dumping,” and hibernation, just 12 days later, at age 15, I found out I was pregnant.
At this new place, I was separated from everything and everyone I knew, good and bad. I wondered how attached to this new life I could become. Even with every uncertainty, I became a mom in an instant. I thought, “It can’t be harder than raising my own mother.”
Though I was fearful, I knew that as a mother to my own child, I was responsible for him. Fearing the family’s reaction and judgment, I trembled and waited. I feared being kicked out and abandoned again. My foster mother noticed my anxiety. Instead of judging, putting me down, or kicking me out, she gently explained, “We will keep and love you and your baby if you’d like to stay. We are glad to raise you and your baby.”
Thankful to have such reassurance, I set off with her for my first ultrasound on May 1. That afternoon, my excitement disappeared when we went to my old house to get a few of my things for the baby and found my mother, who had overdosed.
In one year of my life, I became fatherless, homeless, assaulted, a foster child, a mom, and an orphan. Somehow, I dared to hope just one more time that this would be my last “new start.” I&#8217;ve learned you can be bitter or get better. I chose to settle into my new life and learn.
As I watched my foster family interact, I realized they did not live their everyday lives in fear, guilt, and shame. I wanted that life of love for my child and wondered how I could make it my son’s reality too. Later, God showed me the best way to have that life for him was to learn how to live it myself. I learned that my second mom and dad had their own problems and their own pasts, but they chose to live life together and to show love every day. I learned to hope, and my son became my inspiration. Hope became the reason I could choose life for not only my son, but for myself too.
Every mom has a story before motherhood with mixed feelings surrounding it. What matters is what we choose to do despite our baggage. My life today is beyond what I ever hoped for in my wonders or my worries. Daily, it is full of joyful chaos and full of love, structure, and consistency. Part of my daily life is YoungLives, a teen mom support group. We still meet several times a month, where I am reminded I am far from alone. I’ve been with YoungLives for five years now, and as I have grown into adulthood and welcomed a couple more children, I have become an example of what a little hope and resources can do.
Today, I am a friend and aid to other teenage mothers. As we sit around the supper table or play games, I get to listen to their joys and troubles, whether mundane or extreme. And because of the life I have lived, I can even relate to them. As they share, they may not realize that until I say something to the effect of, “I remember those times.” Many girls have responded with anger or disgust, but once I explain a bit about my story, they quickly realize that I was and still am one of them, just further down the line.
It is one of my greatest joys that when people look at me today, they do not see the pain and hurt of my past. Instead, they can see the love of a mother and friend. Today it is my choice and honor to get to share what a little hope can do.
***
 Angel Rassi is a Christian wife and stay-at-home mother of two children — with another on the way. She works with teen mothers and their families through Ohio Valley YoungLives.

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I Lost Everything. Then One Unexpected Pregnancy Changed My Future.

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Call her daddy? More like call her mommy. 
“Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DYcNSWLjsjV/?hl=en">pregnancy announcement</a> sent the internet into a frenzy — not because a woman is having a baby, but because this woman is. The host who built an empire telling young women to stay unattached, sleep around, and never apologize for it is now married, expecting, and apparently just fine with all of it. Critics cried hypocrisy. But are they right?
Now, I&#8217;m not here to defend Alex Cooper&#8217;s rhetoric, content, or influence over young women&#8217;s decision-making in any way, but I can&#8217;t help but notice that the criticism of her supposed anti-marriage, anti-motherhood stance misses the point.
Most criticisms surrounding Cooper’s announcement were that she “secretly” dated, decided to get married, and now is becoming a mother after she had told young women to be forever single. So much for a secret! Cooper announced her &#8220;intimate beachside wedding in the Riviera Maya&#8221; in <a href="https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/alex-cooper-and-matthew-kaplan-wedding">Vogue</a>. And her pregnancy announcement was foreshadowed by, ironically, a full episode titled, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TamkxdBiNyY">“I’m Not Ready For A Baby…”</a> in which she openly discussed trying to get pregnant with her husband Matt Kaplan, including going off birth control and questioning whether she was fertile, ultimately concluding the timing wasn&#8217;t right. Hardly the words of someone opposed to motherhood.
Cooper’s podcast has unashamedly encouraged young women to hook up with whomever they want, whenever they want, for however long they want. She has sold a young woman’s twenties as a time to explore any and all desires, party on, and not give an “eff” about what anyone else says. It’s the Samantha Jones philosophy for sex. But unlike the &#8220;Sex in the City&#8221; character, Cooper has chosen monogamy and motherhood — fortunately, as will many other girls who grew up listening to her bad advice.
Millennial women grew up in one of the most &#8220;sex-positive&#8221; moments in history, choosing to not align with traditional timelines for marriage or child-bearing and to &#8220;enjoy their youth&#8221; instead. But this doesn’t mean they’re not getting married or having kids, just like Cooper. Rather, women are delaying these milestones into their late-20s and 30s.
According to a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, Cooper’s pregnancy comes at a, dare I say, “normal” time in her life. Lyman Stone, who shared a study <a href="https://x.com/lymanstoneky/status/2056453849054167132?s=20">on X</a>, says this: 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
For a non-Hispanic white woman married to a non-Hispanic white man with no children prior to marriage where both have a college degree, 48% of first births were between ages 29 and 33.
Since virginity at ages 29-33 is a statistical minority, and even single-partneredness is, we…
— Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 (@lymanstoneky) <a href="https://twitter.com/lymanstoneky/status/2056453849054167132?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
If Cooper’s timeline isn’t exactly late, and even with her pro hook-up culture rhetoric, she still has the natural desire to get married and have kids, then some may argue, what’s the harm in all of this?
The reality is that women (and certainly men) are using their twenties to party and sleep around — and for some, it might even result in finding the right person. It did for Cooper. But the larger dilemma is that in the name of bodily autonomy, many women find themselves entering a life of adult adolescence, which delays these milestones for a larger portion of the population than in the past. Many women eventually find themselves asking: Where did I go wrong? When in reality, the choices they made may not have been shaping them into the kind of women men envision as &#8220;wifey material,” and leave them feeling like a shell of themselves.
There are many nuances to this theory, but what time cannot change is this: the standards are different for men and women. Society has encouraged young men to “sow their wild oats” and choose to settle down once they reach a place of financial stability that is enough to support a family. Women, on the other hand, even after decades of so-called “progress” and feminism, will still be called slanderous names for having multiple sexual partners.
In season 2 of &#8220;Sex and the City,&#8221; Carrie wrestles this truth: “If you’re a 30-something woman living in Manhattan and you refuse to settle and you’re sexually active, it’s inevitable that you’ll rack up a certain number of partners. But how many men is too many men? Are we simply romantically challenged — or are we sluts?”
The danger in Alex Cooper&#8217;s so-called advice and laissez-faire sexual philosophy is that although she may have ended up in the right place, the question remains: is it working out for the women who have listened to her? It may have for some, as many women desire marriage and motherhood even while playing the field. But for others, they&#8217;re left confused and wondering why, at 30 or older, they still can&#8217;t seem to find a husband.
The truth is, women still want these things, and they are very good things. The best, actually. And rather than empowering themselves by sleeping around like men — without emotion, detached, and &#8220;just for fun&#8221; — many women are turning up feeling left behind, unprepared, and diminished by choices they once thought were liberating. This is the real danger.
Alex Cooper&#8217;s story has a happy ending. The question worth asking is whether the philosophy she sold along the way leads other women to the same place, or leaves them stranded somewhere in the middle, wondering where the script went wrong. Empowerment that only works for the person selling it isn&#8217;t empowerment at all. Call her what you want. Just don&#8217;t call her a role model.
***
Isabella Redjai is a multimedia marketing and senior producer at the Manhattan Institute.

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***
When well-meaning people tell expectant moms that “motherhood changes you,” they may be more right than they know. A new study by brain scientists in the Netherlands suggests that a mother’s brain undergoes distinct changes after having a second child that seem to help her adapt to caring for her growing family.
A decade ago, a related study found that women’s brains lose gray matter after having a first child, and the changes last for years — something researcher Elseline Hoekzema referred to as “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/22/health/pregnancy-brain-changes/index.html">synaptic pruning</a>.” Second-time mothers’ brains appear to be “more strongly altered in networks involved in reacting to sensory cues and in controlling your attention,” researcher Milou Straathof <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-pregnancy-uniquely-female-brain.html">said</a> of the recent study.
The new study, detailed in an <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69370-8">article</a> published in February, found that the changes were distinct enough that “women could significantly be classified as having undergone a first or a second pregnancy based solely on their brain changes between sessions.” X user Anish Moonka <a href="https://x.com/anishmoonka/status/2049010221847310400">shared</a> a synopsis of the study ahead of Mother’s Day, causing many moms to comment that they were thankful to know their so-called mom brain moments, though frustrating, had an underlying purpose.
“It&#8217;s incredibly important to study how pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting affect the brains of women (and men, too). The majority of adults become parents at some point in their lifespan, but there are still major gaps in our understanding of how the transition to parenthood affects our neurobiology, cognition, health, and brain aging,” psychologist and professor Darby Saxbe, author of the forthcoming book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dad-Brain-Science-Fatherhood-Shapes/dp/1250387523">Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men&#8217;s Lives</a>,&#8221; told The Daily Wire in a statement. Saxbe is listed as a peer reviewer of the 2026 article.
The 2026 study involved 110 women who underwent MRI brain scans to examine data points such as gray matter volume, resting-state brain activity, and white matter tract organization. The women were divided into three groups: women pregnant with their first child, women pregnant with their second child, and a control group of women who were not pregnant.
Psychologist and licensed behavior analyst Lauren Mahoney, who teaches at the City University of New York, told The Daily Wire that the research tracks with her personal experience as a mother.
“After my first child, the shift felt internal. My attention narrowed in a way that almost felt protective,” Mahoney said. “I remember thinking how strange it was that I could pick up on the smallest cues but at the same time forget something as simple as why I walked into a room.”
“After my second child, the shift was entirely different,” she continued. “I had a very clear moment where I thought, ‘My brain doesn’t get to stay in one place anymore.’”
The concept of matrescence, the process of becoming a mother, is important for women to be aware of, experts told The Daily Wire. Many people describe it as the process of transforming from maiden to mother. 
“Another important piece of the research is that the most significant changes in first-time mothers occur in the default mode network, which is heavily involved in self-referential thinking and understanding other people’s thoughts and emotions,” Mahoney said. “That helps explain why first-time mothers often describe such a profound identity shift. They are not just caring for a child. Their brain is actively reorganizing how they understand themselves in relation to another human being. By the second pregnancy, that system has already adapted. So instead of restructuring identity again, the brain appears to refine and build capacity for managing complexity. That is where the shift toward attention and action systems becomes so important.”
The findings of the study weren’t a total surprise for researchers who have conducted similar studies with animals and had similar findings, said neuroscientist <a href="https://www.jodipawluski.com/">Jodi Pawluski</a>, author of the book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Brain-Discover-amazing-maternal/dp/1772584878">Mommy Brain</a>.&#8221; Pawluski said the new study may point out the obvious (or at least what is obvious to experts) — that a second-time mom experiences changes in neural networks related to attention, sensory, and motor pathways — but it’s still very important research to build on.
“The majority of the research we have on the maternal brain has focused on how becoming a mother for the first time is related to changes in the brain,” Pawluski told The Daily Wire in a statement. “However, the majority of mothers have more than one child, so understanding how the second (or third, or fourth) time impacts a mother&#8217;s brain is incredibly important to ensure we are doing all that we can to support mothers and families.”
The authors of the new study were also interested in how these brain changes correlate with mother-baby bonding and peripartum mood. The article states that for both groups of pregnant women, less pronounced brain changes were linked to depression.
Many people underestimate the amazing nature of the mother-baby connection, Dr. Kristin M. Collier, associate professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, told The Daily Wire, <a href="https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/a-relational-theology-of-biology/">citing research</a> that shows that a mother’s voice can affect her child’s brain structure, can influence her baby’s heart rate, and is likely a key factor in her child’s development of language.
The new study could contain meaningful information for moms going about their everyday lives, Mahoney said. Most importantly, she wants moms to give themselves grace when they feel like they no longer function the way they did before having children.
“The difficulty focusing, the constant mental switching, [and] the feeling of being cognitively stretched are often interpreted as personal shortcomings, when in reality they reflect a brain that has adapted to manage complexity and unpredictability,” she said. “When women understand this, there is often an immediate shift from self-criticism to self-compassion. They begin to work with their brain instead of against it. That might look like structuring tasks differently, allowing for more flexible attention, or recognizing that efficiency now looks like responsiveness rather than sustained focus.”
Either way, moms can be grateful for scientific proof that their &#8220;mom brain&#8221; is actually their superpower.
***
Evie Solheim is a freelance journalist, book reviewer, and author of the newsletter <a href="https://eviefordham.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Girl’s Guide</a>. Find her on X <a href="https://x.com/EvieSolheim" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@eviesolheim</a>.

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